Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Coming off SSRIs
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Jennn thanks for the suggestions, much appreciated, and hope you manage a better night's sleep tonight.
Craigyb, so sorry to hear what a rotten time you've been having, and you're so right about not bottling things up. I'm not sure how long you've been on fluoxetine, but as you said "recently", I'm assuming not that long? It is absolutely hellish for the first few weeks, and it definitely gets worse before it gets better. The anxiety on top of it all is hideous, but if you can, just try to remember that it's chemically induced, it's not real, and it will pass. If you've only been taking it for a couple of weeks, you'll be through the period of increased anxiety soon, and after a month or so fluoxetine should take away the top end of the depression. In my case fluoxetine messed up my sleep even more than it already was, but that's not the case for everyone, so hopefully you won't have the same side effect. I suppose what I'm trying to say is if's early days of taking the stuff, hang in there.
Good on you for admitting to yourself and your GP how you're feeling, and for doing something about it, you've taken the first step on the road to recovery. All the very best, mate.
Hi Hash - just come across this thread. I usually taper my patients down off SSRIs - perhaps not over a long period of time, just a couple of weeks, but definitely taper. As has already been mentioned, the effects of coming off them vary hugely from person to person. Some people *can* cold turkey and be fine. I had another lady who was incredibly, incredibly sensitive to even a tiny drop in her dose and it took us months to get her right off them.
Has anyone mentioned CCBT (Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) to you? If you're not good on meds, and want to try other things, this may help. There are a couple of sites - Mood Gym and Living Life To The Full which I recommend to my patients.
Good luck with it.
Just wondering how you are doing Hash and hoping you are OK and getting some sleep?
Limps xxx
Hashie mate, sorry you've been having a rough time.
I did some research when I was on mine - took 'em for 6 months and decided that I didn't need them anymore.
I literally divided a pack up into quarters for three weeks, halves for three weeks and three quarters for three weeks. I tapered off them over about 5 weeks and then lost all the quarters.
I felt no difference though - tapering from three quarters to halves and then maybe two days of quarters and was fine.
Good luck mate
Aw, thanks for the concern both. I'm fine, in fact better than fine. I haven't taken one since the first week of February. The first few days were - as I said above - hell on earth, but I was convinced the pills were just making things worse by preventing me getting any sleep at all, so I was determined to stick with it. Or rather, stick without it.
After about 5 days the screaming anxiety faded away and...... we had a ceremonial burning of what was left of the packet by chucking them on the fire on Sunday.
They didn't half make a row when they went up! Probably just the plastic blister packs and the glaze on the cardboard box, but still a very satisfying noise.
The total sleep disruption seems to be getting better - whether that's thanks to stupidly long marathon training runs or just the tablets not getting in the way, I don't know or care. That it inself is making me feel waaaaaay better than I did a few weeks ago. I'm getting 4 or 5 hours a night, which believe me is a massive improvement.
Thanks, you lovely lot for the advice, support and good wishes.
Craigyb, Jennn, how are you both?
Hi Hash- glad to hear you're feeling better
I've just gone back on them
but feeling better for it.
I am currently at the end of 12 months of escitalopram. I have gone from the maximum dose to the minimum and I come off next month.
I am at the "screaming in the night like a loony" stage although my anxiety levels are very low through the day now. Mr LB is VERY impressed..... not!
Oh hell LB, really sorry to hear it. You have to wonder if doctors really have a fecking clue what they're doing prescribing these drugs, don't you?
Sorry, Vicky, I missed what you wrote on the last page just now. So sorry to hear you're back on the bloomin' things again.
This is the bit where I wish I had a magic wand. Supposedly exercise helps
Erm...... so why is this thread on RW at all? Maybe we'd all be worse without it. I've bought a book on meditation, but it's such a load of old cobblers, or maybe I'm just not doing it properly. I'm getting irritated with the author, which I suspect is not the best way of relaxing.
"When a door slams and annoys you by disturbing your meditation, it goes on slamming in your mind unless you can just relax and let it go......." Yes, you annoying hippy, and that door is currently slamming on your head in my mind, which is making me feel a whole lot better!
I take it partly for migraine as well as depression- I get a lot of migraines and they contribute to my low mood. Luckily fluoxetine works well for me, but I don't like having to take tablets for months on end. Exercise definitely helps me, I'd be much worse if I didn't exercise!
I like the slamming comment!
I can't be the only one who is really pleased that I'm not alone being on these bloody pills can I? I felt so alone when I was at my worst and I knew so few people who had been through it. Knowing that there are so many lovely (and NORMAL) people on here who have had problems actually helps me feel better!
When the doctor put me on them I was so ashamed I could barely pick the prescription up. I would rather have collected one for an STD!
Hash - I find that my tolerance levels have seriously diminished since I started the Cipralex. Now I'm permanently irritated by EVERYTHING that is stupid! I don't want to lend that book after you!
Only just found this (can't think why as I have a good nosey every day) anyhoo, my experience of fluoxetine was OK on but weaned off gradually (this time last year after 6 months on them). It may be that you just don't suit them, but like all a / d's the side effects can be exactly the same as the condition and in fact, may worsen it.
No 1 Child is on fluoxetine and risperidone (anti-psychotic / anxiety thing). He started on citalopram which didn't work for him and made him worse. He's very similar to me, so as fluoxetine worked for me, we tried him on it.
Both of mine have problems sleeping, so take melatonin. You could try asking for that - it's natural, just boosts the levels in your body. No 1 Child is on fast-release, he takes it and is knocked out after 30 mins. No 2 Child is on currently prescribed slow-release. He takes it with evening meal and is asleep around 2 1/2 - 3 hours later.
No 1 Child also uses relaxation CDs etc so that might be another alternative if sleep is a problem.
Only the best are in this club, LB
. You have to be very special to join. Hope you're getting on OK.
Don't want to be negative, but it does seem that if you get affected by this sort of stuff, even when you're better, it can come back and bite you. I've been struggling not to get dragged down by it these last 4 months while ill, I could sense it hovering and had to fight really hard not to give in.
Jeeps - its only in the last 12 months that I've actually realised I have been battling anxiety for over 20 years!
When I was 12 I stopped being able to swallow food and was always choking. I was a bit of a self harmer too.
I was a gifted child and a fluent reader before I went to school and yet I couldn't read aloud in class because if I stumbled over a single WORD I would freak out.
I had panic attacks I didn't realise were panic attacks for years and I had PND after Miss LB the younger. I wanted to run away on Christmas day and genuinely thought nobody would notice!
This last year I admitted to the doctor that I sometimes felt I would inevitably crash my car or fall under a train at some point. She took me VERY seriously, thinking I was suicidal. I absolutely am NOT - but I was having very irrational thoughts. I thought everyone had them!
I think anxiety and depression can be controlled, but cannot be banished forever. They are something more people battle with than anyone realises. They are NOT the same either. I guess its like anoxeria - you can recover from it but you can never say you're free.
Three things I learned this year Hash.
Hash. wrote (see)
+1
And it's OK to get upset when people who could and should be supportive when you're down, aren't. It's their problem not yours if / when they aren't.
I went to my doctor when I had my "little whoospie" (as I now call it) and was pretty broken in her room chatting. My dad died 2 years earlier, had moved to London, back to Wales, was made redundant, had overdraft withdrawn and was haemorhaging constantly. Eventually found out had fibroids - no thanks to numerous A&E's who looked at me and said "you're 25 - you obviously don't know what a heavy period is". Had injections then to induce menopause, crashed out and was taken to hospital in an ambulance, had the surgery cancelled, flew back to South Africa within 2 weeks, saw the doctor and was in surgery within a week. 6 weeks to recover - had to get a job ASAP because the downside of flying back to SA has been supporting and ungrateful, overpowering, manipulative mother for the next 2 years.
Needless to say, 6 months in at home and my doctor said that sometimes, that little coping mechanism in your brain just stops coping.
She said that's when you help it along a bit.
And gave me the happy drugs.
It took 6 months for them to help my coping mechanism get back on it's feet, I found a job I enjoyed, FINALLY bought a car and although I still have the grumpy cow living with me, I hope to get rid of her by the end of April and be able to live on my own.
Oh and save the equivilent of 250 quid a month.
Thanks PO. I love you babes. xx
That is PRECISELY what I think now. Something snapped. I knew things were tough last year, but to be honest, they'd been worse. As a child I saw my mum regularly beaten half to death. I used to hate it when she screamed for me to come and help her when I was only 6. She has had every bone in her body smashed and lost most of her teeth. Then he started on me and I used to go to school and lie about how I'd got this black eye "or the social would come and take me away"....
My God, they should have done! Every time I ran away they'd make me go back. I was trapped.
Now in adulthood and approaching 40 (yikes) I have a wonderful husband, fantastic kids, big house and no financial concerns. And yet this was the time I chose to breakdown.
Why? Because Punch and Judy are STILL F**KING at it 30 years later, only now my dad is terminally ill, frail and mentally cruel rather than physically so and my mum keeps walking out on him and he tries to throw himself under trains these days. Both were treating me like some sort of a referee, calling me drunk to tell me what the other one had done. From the safety and security of my own home I started to shut down. I stopped answering the phone and my dad got desperate and attempted suicide. I felt to blame and flipped.
They know I was put on anti anxiety pills. Neither of them realise that they are a major factor in it. My mum was more interested in knowing if mine were stronger than hers, like it was some sort of competition! FFS...
The biggest change has been that I put my foot down and I cut them out of my life until they could behave in front of me. I don't allow the phone calls now "he's done this" or "she's done that" and if I DO see them they KNOW that I expect them to be at least be civil. I feel like a headteacher but if they want to see their grandchildren, that's the deal.
My kids will NEVER have to deal with what I put up with. That's my role as a parent and I will cut them off forever before that happens.
Jesus LB that's really awful - I'm really sorry to hear that.
You're a good mum and really good person - no thanks to you folks no doubt. I know what you mean about having gone through worse - so why the hell does it rear it's head now? I think it's easier to cope when you're younger because you can act out and scream and shout and people accept it as normal. You can't do that as adult - everything that hurts, must be hidden.
I think as an adult, you also have to deal with those emotions that you feel for your parents and your family. And you have to make the decisions that effect you and your husband and your kids. You never did that as a child - you don't get to choose how adults treat you and what they do to you. You just have to take it as much as you can and hope that you survive it.
When you're an adult, you have a keener sense of how you should be treated and I think it's harder to get over things as an adult because you know that what is right or wrong.
Realising that you need some help is paramount. But I also think it's counterproductive to blame yourself for your depression or your anxiety because then, you will never get over it. Once you realise that it's situational and it's what your parents did to you and the reactions you got, you can place blame squarely outside of yourself and begin to work at fixing what was done to you.
When you are convinced that your depression is YOU and it's genetic or it's because of an intrinsic characteristic within yourself, I believe those people will be depressed for a long time. Depression is normally caused by external factors and those factors need to be dealt with in order for you to begin reconstructing your life.
Funny isn't it? Being overweight is something that we need to take responsibility for. But I don't think we need to do that with depression (unless it's clinical - I have a brother and a best mate with bipolar - both diagnosed through a period of mania) - with depression, we need to look at WHY we are depressed and fix that or change that and try to make our world make sense...